The Heat’s Jimmy Butler doesn’t want to be boxed in. While Butler may be an NBA athlete, his career ambitions stretch beyond the court. For that reason, Butler recently revealed he’s producing a country music album.
Heralding from Tomball, Texas, Butler admittedly has always been a fan of the genre. In fact, he’s working on his own country music album. So far, the project has taken the better part of the year. Butler himself isn’t singing on the album, but he is producing country music.
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The athlete-turned-producer has been busy. So far, he’s produced 60 songs. He plans to record 200 songs in total. For his first album, Butler wants options to pick, but from the sounds of things, Butler has enough songs to produce several albums.
The athlete didn’t reveal what musicians will the feature on the album. However, speaking with The Guardian, Butler did open up about the process. He’s found the venture to be both fun and also really stressful.
“And it’s fun, and I do love it, but my goodness, it’s difficult,” Butler said. “It’s stressful. It’s completely different from basketball. I’m not saying basketball’s easy either, but just for people to be able to think they can just go do this or that. It’s like, man, look. Humble yourself. It is incredibly fun. I’ve had a blast while doing it. But I will tell you that it’s not easy.”
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Jimmy Butler on Producing
As far as idols, Butler sees himself as the DJ Khaled of the project. The athlete continued the comparison, explaining that he has to check his ego at the door as a producer.
“I’m like the DJ Khaled of this thing,” he said. “He’s a crazy talented individual. To bring all these artists together and to have them be able to maintain the egos and be like, ‘Yo, look, this is what we’re trying to get done here,’ he’s mastered it. I freaking love DJ Khaled. ‘We are the best,’ as he would say.”
The athlete has big plans for his future beyond just the NBA including having his own coffee company BIGFACE. He continued, “One of my biggest things is just to continually try and make people so comfortable in their own skin that they’ll unapologetically always be them.”
It remains to be seen exactly what form Butler’s album takes, but the athlete can’t wait to share it.
[Photo by Daniel Boczarski/Getty Images for Bonobos]
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